How the Silk Wallet Is Different from Others

Wallet choices depend on the value of assets being stored, the user’s experience level—from casual participants to power users, and the perceived trustworthiness of the wallet. Wallets differ in key areas such as security, user experience, in-app functionalities, and the potential incentives. They are also differentiated by their underlying technologies, such as Multi-Party Computation (MPC), account abstraction, and authentication methods that include passkeys, social logins, biometrics, and key recovery techniques.

In this article, we will explore how Silk differentiates itself on the frontiers of security and usability. We will also discuss how Silk functions not just as a wallet as a service but as a protocol that other wallets can leverage to improve onboarding and reduce the risks associated with single points of failure in self-custodied wallets.

Security: Cold Wallet Protection with Hot Wallet Convenience

Each wallet type has its own own strengths and vulnerabilities. Cold wallets, while resistant to online attacks, can fall prey to physical theft or clipboard attack vulnerabilities, where malware manipulates addresses during copy-paste operations. Browser extension wallets face risks from malware and phishing attacks. Social login wallets, though convenient, introduce potential vulnerabilities through their centralized recovery mechanisms relying on cloud backups and social recovery. Self-custodial wallets in general are susceptible to single point of failure given the high diligence required by the user to safegaurd private key. Users often fall prey to social engineering and other deceptive methods, even if they follow the sacred commandments of “9 ways to protect your wallet”, or key rotation practices.

Silk, Secure by Design

Silk approaches security from a holistic design perspective, aiming to eliminate single points of failure. It employs a multi-layered strategy:

Website isolation to protect against same-origin exploits, addressing a common vulnerability in embeddable wallets.
Decentralized and distributed key management using Holonym’s Mishti network and Pera’s 2PC MPC network.
"Human Keys" are generated from memorable human attributes for secure private keys. This improves sign up and authentication by using familiar inputs like passwords, security questions, or private biometrics. As keys are often stolen during authentication, Silk's distributed key approach, coupled with a policy engine, assesses risks to prevent fund-draining transactions. The familiarity of Human Keys allows easy key regeneration on any device.
Leveraging Ethereum's economic security through the Mishti network, as an Actively Validated Service on EigenLayer, inherits Ethereum's robust economic security for continuous validation and anti-collusion design.
Implementing a 2PC MPC architecture that splits key control between user and network, preventing the single point of failure common in other self-custodial wallets.

This comprehensive approach addresses various internal and external attack vectors from phishing, clickjacking, XSS attacks, malware, and malicious smart contracts, tackling security challenges faced by both cold and hot wallet designs.

Key recovery

Either be extremely diligent to hold your private key, or use sub optimal alternatives such as cloud backups, trusted guardians and social recovery to safeguard private keys. Silk challenges this dichotomy by simple key recovery with complete sovereignty.

Intuitive Key Recovery with zk Identity Proofs

Seedless Recovery: Silk reimagines key recovery by using zero-knowledge (zk) identity proofs, eliminating the need for cumbersome seed phrases. Human Keys can be regenerated on any device given the familiarity of inputs like passwords and security questions. Zk Proofs on ownership of these personal identifiers help with recovery if even these familiar inputs are forgotten.
Sybil Resistance: Mishti Network creates a nullifier scheme (say digital fingerprint) from your personal data when generating a private key. Only a hash (scrambled version) of this fingerprint is publicly recorded, allowing uniqueness verification without revealing personal information. This prevents duplicate accounts being created from the same personal identifiers.

Human Keys: Familiar Knowledge for Secure Private Key Generation

Silk introduces Human Keys, a paradigm approach to private key generation that allows users to derive keys from familiar and low-entropy data sources, such as passwords, biometrics, Social Security Numbers and security questions. While the math ensure brute force resistance to these keys, the simplicity of choosing familiar inputs gives the user flexibility and varying preferences.

Web2 UI with Web3 Power: Accessibility for All

One of Silk’s standout features is its user interface (UI), designed to bridge the gap between the technical complexities of web3 and the simplicity expected by everyday internet users. Silk’s UI is streamlined to ensure that even users who are new to web3 can easily navigate the wallet and take advantage of its powerful features.

User-Friendly Onboarding

Fast Onboarding: Silk offers an onboarding process that’s a one clock process and takes less than 10 seconds, making it one of the fastest in the industry.
Minimalistic Design: The UI is designed to be clean and intuitive, reducing the learning curve associated with using web3 wallets. This minimalism doesn’t sacrifice functionality, as all essential features are easily accessible.
Accessibility Across Devices: Create your account once, and access it on different applications, chains, and browsers. Inbuilt wallet features like Zero Knowledge Proofs on identity can be created on consumer devices, bringing privacy and efficiency. Makes zk accessible to the average internet user.

Silk vs. Wallet as a Service

Wallet as a Service (WaaS) platforms have gained popularity for their ease of integration and use. However, Silk offers a superior alternative, providing the same level of convenience while significantly enhancing security and flexibility.

Stronger Security, Same UI

Decentralized Security: Unlike WaaS, which often relies on centralized web accounts for recovery and management, Silk maintains a decentralized approach, ensuring that users retain full control over their wallets.
No Subscription Fees: Silk is permissionless and free to use, meaning developers don’t need to pay for a monthly subscription to embed it in their dApps.
Composability: Silk’s wallet is composable to be used across different dApps and platforms, unlike WaaS wallets that are often tied to specific applications. Onboard once, and interact across dApps.

Silk: The UI for Holonym’s Onboarding Stack

Silk isn’t just a wallet; it’s the user interface for Holonym’s onboarding stack. Apart from signing and verifying transaction, Silk supports basic wallet functions such as crypto transfers, swaps, and more granular features for onboarding – identity verification, customizable compliance flows, gas tanks, on ramps, and soon off-ramp virtual cards to pay for your Sushi in one single click.

Proof of Humanity: Through Silk, users can mint Zeronym’s soulbound tokens, which can be used to prove their humanity and compliance in various dApps. This integration makes it easier for platforms to enforce sybil resistance and ensure that their users are genuine individuals.
Social Payment: Integrated with Peanut Protocol, users can send crypto to email addresses, even if recipients don't have wallets. When claiming the funds (e.g., $10 USDC), recipients automatically get a protected self-custody wallet, simplifying onboarding.
Gas tank: The Gas Tank allows users to pre-fund their gas fees, enabling the seamless execution of transactions across multiple blockchain networks. This feature abstracts away the complexity of gas fee management across chains.

Cross-Chain Security and Interoperability

Silk’s partnership with Pera brings trustless multi-factor authentication (MFA) and cross-chain interoperability to the forefront. This collaboration enhances Silk’s capabilities, allowing it to function securely across multiple blockchains.

Zero Trust Environment

Federated MPC: Through the 2PC-MPC protocol (Two-Party Computation - Multi-Party Computation), Silk ensures that both the user and the network participate in transaction verification. This model preserves a Zero Trust environment, even in cross-chain interactions.
Cross-Chain Participation: Silk users can interact with multiple blockchains, including EVM-compatible chains, Bitcoin, Solana, and Sui, all while maintaining complete ownership over their signing messages. This cross-chain capability is crucial for users who need to manage assets or perform transactions across different blockchain networks.

Silk for all

From securing high-value assets to onboarding newcomers, Silk has it covered. With seedless key recovery, best in class security, email-batched airdrops with built-in identity flows, and many more solutions for various user bases, Silk offers comprehensive functionality without single points of failure.

About Silk

Silk is the Human Friendly wallet with Instant onboarding. A protocol created by Holonym Foundation. Silk wallets are secured with Zero Trust and ZK Protocols. With Silk you create Human Keys to save, send payments, access global internet finance protocols and manage your private data.